Department of Auxiliary Historical Sciences and Archive Studies

Major Research Areas

Research at the Department revolves around auxiliary historical sciences and written sources in the widest sense of the term, covering the history of the Czech Lands and, most recently, the Czech Republic. Research activities are focused on written culture and the widest spectrum of its production, including the preconditions and circumstances of its existence and social functions. More specifically, our academic staff explore official documents and the institutions producing them, covering the entire time span from the dawn of written culture in the Czech Lands until the present. Our wide spectrum of interests includes documents and institutions relating to State and church administration as well as local government, in addition to economic and financial documents and the history of the relevant institutions. These topics are investigated in the context of diplomatic relations, palaeography and administration history. We also work in the areas of auxiliary sciences such as codicology, heraldics, genealogy, numismatics and chronology, in addition to narrative – especially historiographical – sources, sources related to the history of mobility, the history of art, ego-documents in medieval and early modern history, and others. One of the major objectives of our research is to make historical sources accessible in academic editions.

Annotation: Heřman Jakub Černín of Chudenice (1659-1710), one of the richest and most powerful noblemen in Bohemia, undertook a Grand Tour at the age of twenty. Although such a journey became a regular feature of noble education in Central Europe throughout the 17th century, his journey is particularly worth studying. It was not only exceptionally long, but it is also very well documented with the travel diary and correspondence. The book in two volumes presents a survey about traveling in Europe during the XVII century as well as a reviewing edition and a mirror Czech translation of Heřman Jakub Černín’s diary, which was written in five languages. It covers the period from 1678, December 19th, to 1682, April 5th. In 2015, the book won the prestigious Czech award Magnesia Litera in the category of non-fiction.

Annotation: Very original in its approach, the book deals with the great diplomatic and organisational work of Masaryk’s campaign abroad in Switzerland. It reflects the perspective of its main protagonists who understood their activities as the completion of emancipatory process of the Czech nation towards self-determination outside the Habsburg monarchy, but also the perspective of those who defended the integrity of Austria-Hungary and endeavoured to hinder or even block Masaryk’s campaign. Their instruments were intelligence service, police, diplomacy, censorship, propaganda and justice. The monograph was published to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Masaryk’s speech in the Memorial Hall of the Reformation, Geneva, which was held to honour the 500th anniversary of the death of the Czech reformer and rector of Charles University Jan (John) Hus. In his speech in Geneva on July 6 1915, Masaryk for the first time proclaimed the idea of the independent Czechoslovak state.

Annotation: The book deals with social, economic and cultural development of the rural society in Eastern and Central Europe (with the centre in the Bohemian Lands/Czechoslovakia) within the context of industrialisation, urbanisation and formation of the civic society in the 19th and the 20th centuries. It focuses on peasants and middle farmers who built the basis of the modern agrarian elites as the class-profiled and political representatives of individual regions (lands) and on their ideology – agrarianism.

Annotation: At the end of the 19th and in the first half of the 20th century, the peasant (rural) novel was an attractive literary genre with a wide range of readers. The peasant novel had both literary-artistic and entertaining ambitions, distinct non-literary ambitions (educational, ethnological) but above all it endeavoured to form and strenghten class and national identities. This monograph by a team of Czech and German historians, literary specialists and specialists in other social sciences offers a new, unbiased perspective on the development of Central European countryside and its conflicts, and on its image as conveyed by authors of fiction.

Hana Pátková, Bratrstvie ke cti Božie, Praha 2000 (Bortherhood to the honour of God. A study concerning the confraternities in mediaeval Bohemia; with English summary).